


Mother, Mother

by johnny cade (johnnycake)



Series: Switchblades and Leather [9]
Category: The Outsiders (1983), The Outsiders - S. E. Hinton
Genre: Abuse, Gen, Physical Abuse, Verbal Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-26 14:51:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14404416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/johnnycake/pseuds/johnny%20cade
Summary: Dally's mother was beautiful. She looked like she was made of light.





	Mother, Mother

**Author's Note:**

> this is based slightly off of a roleplay i did with my best friend as well as our own headcanons about what happened to dally’s mom. as far as i know her name isn’t really sheila and none of this is canon, but it is in this series. also i know that canonically he probably lived in new york at this time, but we’re gonna play pretend and decide that he went there for a few years when he was like 13 or something.

Doors were big. Like everything else in the world of a six-year-old boy. That was what Johnny had decided as he stood on tiptoe to press the doorbell to Dally’s house. He heard it ding and echo throughout the house that seemed so much larger on the outside and he froze, almost involuntarily, as he could hear the sound of heavy footsteps as someone came to answer the door. Heavy footsteps in his house meant a beating wasn’t going to be far behind them.

But it wasn’t his mother who opened the door. It was Sheila. Dally’s mother.

Sheila Winston was the most beautiful in town in almost everyone’s opinion, including Johnny’s. Her hair looked like spun gold and fell in ringlets around her shoulders. Her eyes were dark brown and her skin looked like porcelain. And her personality matched her appearance. She was as sweet as honey and as graceful as a butterfly. Johnny thought she was an angel.

“Hey, Johnnycake,” she said, smiling down at him.

“Hi, Mrs. Winston,” he said shyly, not looking at her. He couldn’t stop himself from blushing and smiling back. That was her special nickname for him. The boys called him that too, but it was more special when Sheila said it. She was the one who had come up with it.

Anyone who didn’t know him, might’ve thought that Johnny had a crush on Sheila Winston, and no one would’ve blamed him. Every man in town was a little bit in love with her. Who could blame a little boy for his first love being her too?

But that wasn’t it. It never had been.

Sheila frowned when Johnny turned his face and she could see the bruise that covered the majority of his left cheek. She looked away from Johnny and turned her gaze back to the neighborhood at large, darting around the houses as though looking for snoopers before standing aside to let him in.

He stepped inside. She closed the door behind him. She didn’t say anything while it was open, but the minute it shut again, she knelt down next to him and gently took his chin in her hands, turning his face back and forth, examining the bruise with that same frown.

“You haven’t iced it, have you.” She said this as a statement rather than a question.

Johnny shook his head. The ice was in the refrigerator on the top shelf and he couldn’t reach it without asking for it. Asking for things meant more bruises. So he just let it be. Sheila knew that. Better than probably anyone else.

Taking him by the hand, she stood and let him to the kitchen, sitting him down at the table while she took a wash cloth, filled it with ice, and returned to sit by Johnny and hold the ice to his face. He turned red again and wished, not for the first time, that Sheila was his mother instead.

She held the ice to his face for five minutes. By then, there was a small puddle on the wood of the table. He panicked when he saw it, half expecting her to hit him for making a mess, but she only smiled, got a dry wash cloth and soaked up the water before throwing the rest of the ice and both of the wash clothes into the sink. When she was done, she knelt down in front of him and took his tiny hands in hers, and looking into his eyes, she said, “They ain’t right, Johnny. They’re bad people. You don’t deserve what they do to you. Okay?”

Johnny nodded and when she held her arms out for a hug he stepped right into them.

The only other person he let touch him like that was Dally.

When he pulled away, she smiled at him and, for a moment, Johnny felt like he was looking into the face of the sun. Then she stood and called, “Dallas! Your friend is here!”

The sound of lighter footsteps coming towards them now and Dally appeared in the mouth of the hallway that led to the bathroom and bedrooms. When he saw Johnny he beamed, and Johnny saw the front baby tooth he’d lost. His adult tooth hadn’t grown in yet and there was a gap in his mouth where his tooth had once been.

“Hey, Johnnycake,” Dally said, still grinning.

“Hey, Dal,” Johnny replied quietly, but he was smiling too.

“You boys be good,” Sheila told them sternly, but she was also smiling. “I don’t want your bedroom to be a mess when he leaves Dallas Winston.”

“Okay, ma,” Dally said, he rolled his eyes, but he didn’t stop grinning. Dally didn’t do anything for anybody. But he would do anything for his mother.

Johnny waved a shy goodbye to Sheila, who smiled, and followed Dally back down the hall.

The Winston house wasn’t much bigger than the Cade house, but it felt quite a lot bigger to Johnny because it was cleaner. Even Dally’s bedroom was cleaner than most of the rooms in Johnny’s house. His own bedroom was clean, but that was only because he didn’t have very many belongings to make it messy with.

Dally’s room was smaller than Johnny’s, but there was also a lot more in it. When he stepped inside, he saw Dally’s matchbox cars spread all across the carpet near his bed. Some were lined up in neat rows, but the majority of them were scattered hither and thither across the room. His bed was pressed up against the wall to the left of the door. There was a nightstand with a lamp, a couple tubs of Play-Doh, and a Gumby figure.

Even though it was in total chaos, Johnny liked Dally’s room. It felt more homey than his.

The boys gathered up Dally’s cars and dumped them in the center of the room, then went through them and chose their favorites, taking turns splitting the ones they both wanted between themselves. Once they’d finished that, they played, recreating the mess the room had been in when Johnny had first arrived.

It wasn’t uncommon for Johnny to arrive in the early afternoon on weekends and stay over until early or late evening. He was the only one of Dally’s friends who could get away with staying home after Dally’s father got home and that was only because he was so quiet, oftentimes no one even knew he was there in the first place.

All of Dally’s other friends were made to leave by Sheila before six o’clock.

Six o’clock was when it started getting dark out during the fall.

Six o’clock was when Dally’s father came home.

It was six-thirty when the door opened and slammed shut again. Dally and Johnny were throwing all of Dally’s cars into the plastic tub they belonged in under his bed as quickly as possible, but when they heard the door they froze, they arms full of cars, and looked at each other. The only time Johnny could ever remember Dallas Winston looking afraid was right at that moment.

The boys sat back and instead of dumping the cars into the tub, put them in one at a time as quickly as possible. The house was so quiet they could’ve heard a pin drop and for one brief moment, Johnny thought it might be safe enough to open the door, to go out into the hall, and head back to his house. He was so sure he opened the door as quietly as he could.

And then it started.

It was quiet, low-toned voices they couldn’t understand at first. One placating, the other slowly rising in temper and tone until Johnny could hear the words shouted from the living room as clearly as though he were standing there, being shouted at himself and he began to shake.

“ _YOU STUPID, UGLY BITCH! WHY DO YOU THINK HE’S LIKE THIS? IT’S BECAUSE OF YOU AND YOUR BULLSHIT!”_

There was a horrible sound of skin on skin and Johnny flinched. And it didn’t end there.

He flinched again when he felt a tap on his shoulder and turned quickly.

Dally stood behind him, looking stricken. His eyes were wide, his lips spread wide, but pressed together in a tight, thin line. His hand hovered above Johnny’s skin where he’d tapped him and Johnny found he was surprised when he realized Dally was shaking.

He didn’t say anything. He didn’t move. His eyes only glanced down the hall. Not in the direction of the living room, but in the direction of the master bedroom and the bathroom. Johnny didn’t need him to speak to understand what he meant. This wasn’t the first time this had happened.

Dally had started keeping the window in the master bedroom open for when this happened.

The boys crept down the hall, closing the door as silently as they could behind them after Dally grabbed his overlarge leather bomber jacket from where he’d left it draped over the end of his bed. They could still hear the shouting in the living room. Every now and again they’d hear skin hitting skin again and sometimes a cry of pain and every time they would flinch and freeze for a moment.

It felt like it took a lifetime to get to the master bedroom and by the time they did, they were half convinced they’d taken too long. Dally helped Johnny out the window before climbing out himself and the boys ran as fast as their legs would carry them towards the vacant lot.

Johnny tried not to feel guilty as he ran, but every time he blinked he saw Sheila.

He saw her smiling at him. He saw her frowning at the bruise on his face.

He saw her crying when she thought he wasn’t looking, her own face bruised, looking so exhausted he was surprised she didn’t just collapse right there.

He dug his hands into his palms and ran faster.

* * *

_Obituary : _ **SHEILA MAY** **PINE** **WINSTON**

_On October 26 th, 1957, Sheila May Pine Winston passed away in her home in Tulsa, Oklahoma due to complications from an autoimmune disease she’d had since she was a young girl. She’d had complications for several months before her time of death. Doctors say currently they believe her exact cause of death was exhaustion and stress. She is survived by her son, Dallas, and her husband, Darren._

**Author's Note:**

> aaaa that ending hurt me to write.


End file.
